solar dynamics observatory, Tag

San Francisco – After a year of observations, scientists waited with bated breath on Nov. 28, 2013, as Comet ISON made its closest approach to the sun, known as perihelion. Would the comet disintegrate in the fierce...

Note: See updates below for the ISON ISOFF ISON nature of this comet that has everybody guessing. Picture at right also updated to reflect the new “zombie” status of this comet. Looks like ISON has disintegrated...

Looks like ISON has disintegrated during its turn around the sun. Given the radiation (estimated temperature 5,000F/2,760C – hot enough to vaporize rock), solar wind, and the tidal-forces (smallish, thanks Gavin) associated...

Above: note the four separate events in the last two days – from the WUWT Solar Page (From NASA’s Spaceweather.com) When the week began, the sun hadn’t unleashed an X-flare all year long. In only two days,...

Spectacular three year time lapse video from the Solar Dynamics Observatory In the three years since it first provided images of the sun in the spring of 2010, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has had virtually...

NOAA SWPC has updated their plot page of solar metrics, and the slump continues. At spaceweather.com Dr. Tony Phillips writes: SO THIS IS SOLAR MAXIMUM? Forecasters have long expected the Solar Max of 2013 to be the weakest...

From the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Today, astronomers are releasing the highest-resolution images ever taken of the Sun’s corona, or million-degree outer atmosphere, in an extreme-ultraviolet wavelength...

Spaceweather.com writes: (link mine) The CME launched toward Earth by the July 12th X-flare has not yet arrived. However, we are still within the forecast window set by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab. The cloud...

Large sunspot Group AR1520, seen below just right of center, was pointed directly at Earth when the flare occurred. The GOES Xray Flux spike hit X 1.4, just barely an X-class: From Spaceweather.com Big sunspot AR1520 unleashed...

From Dr. Tony Phillips Science at NASA When Venus transits the sun on June 5th and 6th, an armada of spacecraft and ground-based telescopes will be on the lookout for something elusive and, until recently, unexpected: The...

I loved the way James Russell described CO2 molecules as “natural thermostats” Solar Storm Dumps Gigawatts into Earth’s Upper Atmosphere A recent flurry of eruptions on the sun did more than spark pretty...